Publications

February 2004
Case

Note on Human Behavior: Reason and Emotion

By: Nitin Nohria and Bridget Gurtler

Human beings are driven by reasons and emotions. On the one hand, as rational choice theorists assert, human beings are resourceful and evaluative as they strive to maximize their own interests. An individual's interests can converge or diverge from the interests of... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Emotions; Interests; Organizations; Organizational Design; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

17 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Why Global Brands Work

distractions including Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo will be sold off; they're now meaningless. U.S.-based models like Mercury will be discontinued. Can Ford recover? The answer lies in whether the common vehicle platforms developed for the new strategy prove to be... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Auto

November 1999
Case

Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (A)

By: Andre F. Perold

Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (LTCM) was in the business of engaging in trading strategies to exploit market pricing discrepancies. Because the firm employed strategies designed to make money over long horizons--from six months to two years or more--it adopted a... View Details

Keywords: Fluctuation; Capital; Financial Liquidity; Financing and Loans; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Management; Risk Management; Marketing; Motivation and Incentives; Financial Services Industry

March 2004 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Emerging Business Opportunities at IBM (A)

By: David A. Garvin and Lynne Levesque

By June 2003, IBM had made significant progress in changing the way it managed new, emerging businesses. Describes the development of a separate management program at IBM designed to identify, fund, and shepherd new businesses through growth. Traces the history of the... View Details

Keywords: History; Business or Company Management; Talent and Talent Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy

24 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Why the Internet Doesn’t Change Everything

of sorts. They have allowed entrepreneurs to build empires out of fiber and thin air and to establish these empires in a realm without rules. They have challenged governments and their traditional authority—not by View Details

Keywords: by Debora L. Spar

07 Jan 2015
What Do You Think?

SUMMING UP: What Are the Limits On Workplace Transparency?

it this way, privacy has been losing ground rapidly with the ascendancy of big data and the Internet of things. The retreat of privacy has been aided by personal use of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Article

Adaptive Machine Unlearning

By: Varun Gupta, Christopher Jung, Seth Neel, Aaron Roth, Saeed Sharifi-Malvajerdi and Chris Waites

Data deletion algorithms aim to remove the influence of deleted data points from trained models at a cheaper computational cost than fully retraining those models. However, for sequences of deletions, most prior work in the non-convex setting gives valid guarantees... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; AI and Machine Learning

Read Now

13 Apr 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The ‘IKEA Effect’: When Labor Leads to Love

Keywords: by Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon & Dan Ariely; Consumer Products

20 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

Gaps in the Historical Record: Development of the Electronics Industry

In a recently published book on current international research in business history, edited by Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones, HBS professor emeritus Alfred D. Chandler Jr. contributed an essay on the opportunities... View Details

Keywords: by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; Consumer Products

May 2017 (Revised June 2017)
Case

ATH Technologies (A): Making the Numbers

By: Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard

An exercise that takes students through five stages of growth in an entrepreneurial start-up in the medical devices industry: 1) founding, 2) growth, 3) push to profitability, 4) refocusing process, and 5) takeover by new management. At each stage, students must... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Balancing Innovation And Control; Performance Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Profit; Geographic Location; Governance Controls; Innovation and Invention; Management Succession; Performance Evaluation; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

13 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Diagnosing the Public Health Care Alternative

liabilities, estimated at about $34 trillion. They are omitted from Medicare's costs because the government uses cash accounting. If Medicare followed the accrual accounting, which private sector insurers must use, its administrative costs would increase View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Health

December 1980 (Revised February 1998)
Case

McDonald's Corp. (Condensed)

By: W. Earl Sasser and David C. Rikert

Describes the operating system of McDonald's, the world's most successful fast food chain. The case does not have a decision focus; it is designed for use with Burger King Corp. Students are asked to compare the operating systems of these two fast food hamburger... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Competition; Food and Beverage Industry

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

The Cycles of Theory Building in Management Research

Keywords: by Paul R. Carlile & Clayton M. Christensen

30 Apr 2008
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Brand Management

writer James Patterson, who determines what his customers wants to read, then systematically churns it out in volume. Key concepts include: Patterson regularly outsells other "brand-name authors" such as Stephen King by simply publishing... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Sports; Publishing; Auto

07 Jan 2010
Working Paper Summaries

International Differences in the Size and Roles of Corporate Headquarters: An Empirical Examination

Keywords: by David Collis, David Young & Michael Goold

December 1980 (Revised February 1998)
Case

Burger King Corp.

By: W. Earl Sasser and David C. Rikert

Describes the operating system of a Burger King unit. The case does not have a decision focus; it is designed for use with McDonald's Corp. Students are asked to compare the operating systems of these two fast food hamburger chains. Careful analysis will detect the... View Details

Keywords: Food; System; Operations; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States